TSHOLOTSHO - Villagers here are in danger of losing the little crop they harvested as elephants continue to wreak havoc. (Pictured: Villagers lose sleep over elephant attacks)
The villagers have been spending sleepless nights in a bid to prevent the elephants from destroying their crops. Food shortages are being compounded by elephants eating and trampling the villagers’ crops. These elephants are threatening our livelihood and we fear for our crop as we have no other means of livelihood, if our crops are destroyed we will go hungry, said Mercy Sithole. Farmers are using fires and beating drums to chase away the elephants.
We gather logs and we light up when the elephants appear late in the night and we usually bang drums and make as much noise as we can. They get scared and run away, said Khumbulani Ncube, a resident at the nearby Lubizi village. The problem has persisted over previous seasons and continues to bedevil the helpless farmers. Thin rainfall and a lack of agricultural inputs have brought poor harvests in recent years, leaving more than half the country’s 12 million people reliant on emergency food aid.